My Birthday is on the FIRST Day of School!

Okay, so technically, my birthday is the day BEFORE the first day of school this year, but growing up it was on the first day of school quite often. It's a good thing I loved school! :)

This year we have Meet The Teacher on August 20, then (my birthday) the 21st is a teacher workday and the official day for the kids is the 22nd. I love to use my birthday to model how we will celebrate birthdays for the year. ;) I thought about giving the kids an invitation to a birthday party on the first day of school (no presents allowed, of course!) just to get them REALLY excited about that first day. I'm not sure though. What kind of super fun, really cool activities could we do to celebrate? Any ideas?

I've been thinking about this because yesterday I went to school and put up my birthday display. I FINALLY found those giant pixie stix at Dollar General and they were only 25 cents each!!

I created my little balloons and stuck them in my birthday display!

For my Hollywood theme I used pencils with stars taped to the tops and red and gold bags. I found these short-ish gift bags and tissue that coordinates with my theme at Target!

What else do you do for students' birthdays? I'm going to switch up the traditional "Happy Birthday" song (because my kiddos DROVE me CRAZY with all the add-ons at the end last year....at first they were cute, but then as the year went on it lasted about 10 minutes. When the "EAT MORE CHICKEN" line was added last year, I knew I needed a change!) Instead, we're going to try this Happy Birthday Cheer that I found on Pinterest (of course, I needed to cutesy it up...click to download your copy).

I also have my students work on a page to create a "Happy Birthday" book for the birthday student for morning work instead of the traditional assignment that morning. Since the birthday kid doesn't need to create a page, he/she gets to design the cover of the book!

The birthday kid also gets to pull a birthday coupon from a birthday bag for some type of special treat for the day.

At the end of the day (while waiting on car numbers, etc), the birthday kid gets to play a "Birthday Bonanza Game" with a friend of his/her choice. It's really just a sneaky way to get in some addition and subtraction practice (there are one, two, and three digit card sets for different times of the year), but they think it's FUN!

I want to know - what do you do to celebrate student birthdays? And, what do you think I should do about the first day of school? Celebrate or not? I've always wanted to have a party/celebration for the FIRST day of school (shouldn't we have kids celebrate the start of school rather than the end of school?), but I definitely don't want parents to send in gifts. Help me out here....what do you think?

Also, swim by to visit Courtney at Swimming into Second today and you could win the Non-Fiction Text Features Sign set from Teacher's Clubhouse! Click below.

Oops, my computer went a little crazy. It's so true that we always celebrate the end of the school year when really we want them to be excited about a new school year. I couldn't do the party on the first day because it's such a crazy day. But I think it's a great way to end that first week! Also you'd have a better idea about food allergies.

I think your idea is great. I have the same birthday as you, August 21. My students return on August 20. Most of my parents know it's my birthday because I keep the same students for 3 years. I'm not planning to do anything, but, year after year, they always recognize it one way or another.

I like Karen's suggestion. My birthday is the 2nd day of school! I thought I'd bring in the birthday oreo's as a snack. I used the Star Student seat cover (from Target, of course), and added Happy Birthday on the sentence strip where the child's name would be. I like your b-day chant. I will be downloading that! AmyWhere Seconds Count

That's so cute!! I always try to make a big deal about birthdays too! I had a crazy birthday party hat that my kids got to wear. (I gave them the option of wearing it all day, but my third graders had a tendency to be "too cool" for certain things and the hat was often one of those things.) Nevertheless, they wore it in the classroom while we gathered around and sang to them. I also had badges made for each of them so when we were at lunch or support classes everyone knew it was their birthday!

My first day of school with the students is August 27th, and that is also my birthday. I was planning on giving them a special treat on that day to in celebration of the start of school. I love the your birthday ideas and the birthday cheer you will be using. I will definitely borrow that for my classroom!! You have a fanastic blog.

Love the idea...just send them an invite for a special surprise birthday party on the first day of school.....they don't have to know that it is your birthday until the day they arrive. This way they are excited about celebrating a birthday party and the will not be pressured to bring gifts. If it comes up then you can just simply say that at school there are just no gifts exchanged. I am planning to have a "birthday" journal and on the day of the "birthday" person our mascot will go home to represent our class at their party. The child will write a journal entry as to what they did for their birthday and either draw a picture or take a picture of the mascot and child to place in the journal. The journal entry will be read the next day in class. Thanks for the birthday chant....I may need to borrow this idea for my class.

Hey! Thanks for following my blog! I was so excited to see your comment, as I don't see many SC bloggers. What a neat idea for their birthday! I have been of a cute inexpensive way to celebrate my student's birthdays (I have about 100) and this is really cute. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful stuff!

Yay!! I've been looking for these GIANT Pixy Sticks!! ;) I think I'm going to make them as part of my reward for my Summer Challenge that I gave to my students last year. I had already found some sidewalk chalk on BIG TIME sale at Michael's that I picked up for 26 cents a piece to use for Birthday's. Gotta think of a cutesy saying to go with that...haha! "Chalk it up to a great year!"??

LOVE the birthday chant! Our kids bring in cupcakes if they want (a lot brought in doughnuts last year...can't complain about that!), and we eat them at lunch and sing in the cafeteria. The song can get annoying since EVERYONE sings the same song! I think I'll "steal" your chant to at least change things up when someone in our class has a birthday :)

Love the birthday balloon idea ! I've printed out the balloons...but was still missing the giant pixie stix. Since we both live in Greenville, which Dollar General did you find them at? I may venture out tomorrow !

I always make birthdays a big deal too. I go to Dollar Tree the night before and buy a balloon and tie it to their chair. My sister made birthday vests and the kids wear one the entire day. I am going to make a birthday chair that I saw on Pinterest too. I think you should celebrate your birthday on the first day.Have a great birthday. judikkcfl.rr.com

Oh I love the birthday rap! What fun this will be for the kids. Thanks for sharing! I am a new blogger too and love all your monster ideas. My room is monster themed this year too. If you get a chance come visit my blog http://funinsecondgrade.blogspot.com/ :)